"Puff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... A puff of smoke from the bushes; another; twenty. But no bullets came, the enemy firing from too long a distance. It was like a peaceable field day with ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... nettled by the necessity that was laid upon him of taking no notice of Minnie, that he seized the handle of the bellows passionately, and at the first puff blew nearly ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... rose to leave; each made a comprehensive bow that included the entire company. Daddy lit a cigarette or let Jimbo light it for him, too wumbled with his thoughts of afternoon work to notice the puff stolen surreptitiously on the way. Jane Anne folded her napkin carefully, talking with Mother in a low voice about the packing of the basket with provisions for tea. Tea was included in the Pension terms; in a small clothes-basket she carried bread, milk, sugar, ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... is wiser to put a wild bird in a cage, and expect him to sit and look at you, and chirp without a feather rumpled, than it is to expect a woman to answer reason reasonably." Saying this, he looked at his puff of smoke as if it contained ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... flitting from Bud to Debutante to Ingenue to Fawn to Broiler to Kiddykadee back in 1880, he was a famous Beau with skin- tight Trousers, a white Puff Tie run through a Gold Ring and a Hat lined with Puff Satin, the same as ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... seriously thought of snakes as a possible, or rather probable, source of danger. In four and a half months, in all kinds of country, much of the time on foot, I saw only six live snakes. They were all small and only two, a puff adder and a little viper, were known to be venomous. Our porters, with bare feet and legs, penetrated all kinds of snaky-looking spots and yet not one was bitten. In fact, I have never heard of any one being bitten by snakes in East Africa, and for this reason I can not avoid ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... be so brazen in one's enjoyment of recognition. One's house, one's clothes, one's work, one's children, all these demand a certain modesty of demeanor, however the inner spirit may puff. Not so one's garden. I fancy this is because, while I have a strong sense of ownership in it, I also have a strong sense of stewardship. As owner I must be modest, but as steward I may admire as openly as I will. Did I make my phlox? Did I fashion my asters? Am ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... fluffy flax and touched her candle to it. She thought she would see how that little bit would burn off. She soon found out. The flame caught, and ran like lightning through the whole bundle. There was a great puff of fire and smoke, and poor Mrs. Dorcas' fine candle-wicks were gone. Ann screamed, and sprang downstairs. She barely escaped the whole blaze coming in ...
— The Adventures of Ann - Stories of Colonial Times • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... The Hoopers were loyal Union men, and if the Watsons yielded any loyalty it was to the State of North Carolina. On one occasion shortly before the final tragedy, when one of the young Hoopers was sitting quietly in his door, a light puff of smoke rose from the bushes and a rifle-ball plowed through his leg. The Hoopers resolved to begin the new year by wiping out their enemies, root and branch. Before light they had surrounded the log cabin of the Watsons and secured all the male inmates, except one who, ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... quiet corner of the garden, near the hedge, and the cherry tree was in bloom and showered its delicate blossoms down upon them with every puff of air that stirred the branches; while, in the hedge nearby, a little brown bird was putting the finishing touch to a new nest. The boy's shepherd dog, who sat up when you told him, was the minister; and all the dollies were there, dressed in their ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... he took aim at a man who was climbing from rock to rock to gain the spot from which the other had been dislodged. Then there was a puff of white smoke, a roar that reverberated amongst the rocks, and the poor wretch seemed to drop out ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... to puff your idol-fires, And heap their ashes on the head; To shame the boast so often made, [4] That we are ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... publishers, and above all with journalists. The first lend her their assistance in composition, correction, or addition; with the second she manages to establish an interest and an interchange of services; and the last everlastingly puff her performances. Her name is eternally before the public; she produces those gorgeous inanities, called 'Books of Beauty,' and other trashy things of the same description, to get up which all the fashion and beauty, the taste and talent, of London are ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... like one in a fabric of spider-webs almost fearing to breathe lest the whole house should puff away to shreds before him. Half the boards, fallen from the ceiling, revealed the bare rafters above; below there were ragged holes in the flooring. In one place a limb, torn by lightning or wind from its overhanging tree, had crashed through the corner of the roof and dropped straight through ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... who followed his glance and then nodded in assent. The others, too, soon looked at the same point, Jim Hart craning his long neck until it arched like a bow. Presently from a dense clump of bushes came a little puff of white smoke, and then the stillness was broken by the report of a rifle. A bullet buried itself in one of the trees on the hill, and Shif'less Sol turned over with a sniff ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... always was." Puff. "It's a sure sign of my prudence that I ever found the way here." Puff. "Also, that I am what I am." Puff. "I am well known to be prudent," says Mr. George, composedly smoking. "I rose in life ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... customary for the self-righteous moralists who puff themselves into a state of Jingo complacency over the failings of foreign nations, to declare with considerable unction that the domestic hearth, which every Frenchman habitually tramples upon, is maintained in unviolated ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 14, 1891. • Various
... light laugh, and rejoined with the alacrity of a maritime adventurer who feels a puff of wind in his sail. "Ah, no; if she were in love with me I should know it! I am ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... permitted to hear the echo of her name from those rare altitudes in which you dwell now," the other said, lazily. "So she is one of your fashionable acquaintances; and she wants to secure the puff preliminary, and a number of favorable reviews, I suppose; and then you send for me. But what can I do for you except ask one or two of the gallery men to mention the book in ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... dry hand it was found that it attached to it "all sorts of little fragments, like leaves of gold, silver, paper, etc." "Thus this globe," he says, "when brought rather near drops of water causes them to swell and puff up. It likewise attracts air, smoke, etc."(9) Before the time of Guericke's demonstrations, Cabaeus had noted that chaff leaped back from an "electric," but he did not interpret the phenomenon as electrical repulsion. Von Guericke, however, recognized it as such, and refers to it as what ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... slight puff of wind struck the mainsail, sending the sloop ahead directly toward the shore. But without waiting for orders Harriet sprang to the wheel, pointing the bow of the sloop, that had heeled dangerously, right toward the wind that was blowing ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... name; Does he forget from whence he came; Has he forgot from whence he sprung; A mushroom in a bed of dung; A maggot in a cake of fat, The offspring of a beggar's brat. As eels delight to creep in mud, To eels we may compare his blood; His blood in mud delights to run; Witness his lazy, lousy son! Puff'd up with pride and insolence, Without a grain of common sense, See with what consequence he stalks, With what pomposity he talks; See how the gaping crowd admire The stupid blockhead and the liar. How long shall vice triumphant reign? How long shall mortals bend to gain? How long shall ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... that," quoth Mr. Peacock, in the short gasps which his resolute struggle with his uninviting victim alone permitted; "nothing but [puff, puff] your true [suck, suck] syl—syl—sylva—does for him. Out, by the Lord! the jaws of darkness have devoured it up;'" and again Mr. Peacock applied to his phosphoric machine. This time patience and perseverance succeeded, and the heart of the cigar responded by a dull red spark (leaving the ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... He came in with the letters and his jaw dropping. It so happened that his letter was the very last one, and when he got to it the truth flashed over him. Then the peculiar appropriateness of the nickname Puff was plainly manifest. One by one the boys slid off their chairs to the floor, and at last Weir had to join ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... would never improve. For the same reason, long before she could read aloud to her mother intelligibly, she had learnt all that Harriet could teach her, not only of the house-work, but of the cooking, from cleaning a fish and trussing a fowl to making barley-broth and puff-pastry. Harriet was a good cook if she had the things, as she said herself, having picked up a great deal when she was kitchen-maid in Uncle ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... front smoked the most infernal tobacco I ever smelt. Moreover, the horses were not lively steeds. They were rather safe than otherwise, and not given to running away. Although the driver addressed himself to their flanks, between each puff of smoke, with a pointed stick, they didn't rear and plunge so as to frighten the ladies, and that was a point gained, albeit we had leisure to count the pickets in the fences as we dragged toward our destination. One of our lady passengers came from Connecticut, and she talked with a nutmeg ...
— Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 37, December 10, 1870 • Various
... present) remarks,—"Dubious and uncertain is the Source or Spring of Puffing in this Infant Country, it not being agreed upon whether Puffs were imported by the primitive Settlers of the Wilderness, (for the Puff is not enumerated in the aboriginal Catalogue,) or whether their Growth was spontaneous or accidental. However uncertain we are about the Introduction or first Cultivation of Puffs, it is easy to discover the Effects or Consequences ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... another matter. Instinctively the spy knew his danger. This was not a man to hesitate about pulling a trigger, and his life, in the hollow of Stair Garland's hand, would weigh no heavier than a puff of dandelion smoke which a gust of wind carries along with it. So from his first acquaintance with him the spy had given Stair ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... out for a puff of free air! Among our fellows we gained little enough sympathy for our misfortunes. Flanagan was the only fellow who seemed really sorry. The rest of the ill- conditioned lot saw in the affair only a good opportunity of crowing over their ill-starred adversary, and telling me it served me ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... flared with a puff on the rocks, twenty feet from where the two projectors were mounted. I saw that two helmeted figures were down there. They tried to swing their grids upward, but could not get them vertical to reach us. The ship was firing at us, but it was far ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... A puff of smoke, hanging like a cloudlet, guided his eyes. Not far in front of it he saw the fawn-like form of a chamois stretched in death upon the ground, while two others were seen bounding with amazing precision and elasticity ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... the difference at home is because we always carry a few amateurs, who are privileged to come in at practice and do all the damage they can, but who have to keep mighty quiet on the march. They can carry their horns, puff out their cheeks and look as grand as they please, but if they'd presume to cut loose with some real notes and smear up a piece, they'd be fired ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... and she thinned to a thread. "One puff More's enough To blow her to snuff! One good puff more where the last was bred, And glimmer, glimmer, glum will ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... moor my mind And cast the anchor Hope, A puff of breath will put to death The morbid misanthrope That lurks inside—as errors hide In standing forms of type To mar at birth some line of worth; And so I smoke ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley
... coming. The ship that had been lying tide-rode swung to a heavier puff; and suddenly the slack of the chain cable between the windlass and the hawse-pipe clinked, slipped forward an inch, and rose gently off the deck with a startling suggestion as of unsuspected life that had been lurking ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... said the wind. "Now you may go—puff!" And away flew some of the seeds, just as they do when you blow the ...
— Laugh and Play - A Collection of Original stories • Various
... was taking off her hat, standing before the mirror to puff out her soft ripples of hair. "What a lovely big room this is," she remarked. "I never had such a big room all to myself. We are such a large family that we always have to double up, I don't mean like a jack-knife," she added with a little laugh. "I wonder if I shall ...
— Little Maid Marian • Amy E. Blanchard
... your answer," said the Mexican, pointing to a puff of smoke that had just shot out from the summit of an isolated hill on which were batteries and buildings. "Chapultepec—a gun!" he added, and the ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... perfectly marvellous; and the ease with which she came round, and the incredible distance she shot ahead in stays, was, if possible, more astonishing still; she steered as easy as a jolly-boat; or if, when running, a puff made her refractory, by dropping the after centre-board she became as docile as a lamb. My only regret was that I could not see her under the high pressure of a good snorter. Of course, any salt-water fish will have long since discovered that this wonderful yacht is a leviathan ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... came a double knock at the house door, yet heavy and dull, as though the knocker had been tied up—more like a puff than a knock. ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... them, the Chulduns lowered or dropped their weapons and began edging away to the sides. At the center, in front of the throne, most of them had been knocked out. Verkan Vall was still watching the Muz-Azin high priest intently; as Ghromdur raised his arm, there was a flash and a puff of smoke from the front of Yat-Zar—the paint over the collapsed nickel was burned off, but otherwise the idol was undamaged. Verkan Vall swung up his needler and rayed Ghromdur dead; as the man in the green-faced black ...
— Temple Trouble • Henry Beam Piper
... one of the most dismal places ever seen by eyes. I see the houses with their roofs of dull black, their stained fronts, and their dark- rimmed windows, looking as if they were all in mourning. As every little puff of wind comes down the street, I see a perfect train of rain let off along the wooden stalls in the market-place and exploded against me. I see a very big gas lamp in the centre which I know, by a secret instinct, will ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... but to that intent? Think you a little din can daunt mine ears? Have I not in my time heard lions roar? Have I not heard the sea, puff'd up with winds, Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat? Have I not heard great ordnance in the field, And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies? Have I not in a pitched battle heard Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets' clang? And do you ...
— The Taming of the Shrew • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... he fear'd he losin' de use er he min', 'kaze he done come ter dat pass dat he aint kin fool de yuther creeturs no mo', en dey push 'im so closte twel 't won't be long 'fo' dey'll git 'im. De ole Witch-Rabbit she sot dar, she did, en suck in black smoke en puff it out 'g'in, twel you can't see nothin' 't all but 'er great big eyeballs en 'er great big years. ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... in his face, and the brisk puff of newly washed ozone in his heavily moving lungs, aroused Garrison's struggling consciousness by slow degrees. Strange, fantastic images, old memories, weird phantoms, and wholly impossible fancies played through his brain with the dull, torturing persistency of nightmares for ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... delicate perfumes as they do silk stockings and violets. It's just "born in 'em," like their deep-rooted horror of mice and bills and burglars. From the time when the baby girl sniffs the sweetness of the powder puff as it fluffs about her soft, pretty neck until the white-haired lady lovingly fondles the lavender sachets that lie between the folds of her time-yellowed wedding ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... what then?—I may have seen her picture, as Puff says in the Critic, or fallen in love with her from rumour—or, to save farther suppositions, as I see they render you impatient, I may be satisfied with knowing that she is a beautiful and accomplished young lady, with a ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... stopped short. On a low sofa at the far end of the room lay a man of more than ordinary girth, with coat, vest, and shoes off, his face concealed by a newspaper. From beneath this sheet came, at regular intervals, a long-drawn sound like the subdued puff of a tired locomotive at rest on a side-track. Beside him was an empty tumbler, decorated with a broken straw and a ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... was making his reconnaissance our naval 12-pounders opened fire on "Long Tom" a few minutes after six o'clock, as a flash and puff of white smoke from his muzzle told that the bombardment was about to begin. For an hour and a half the artillery duel went on briskly, Captain Lambton's naval battery answering shot for shot, or rather ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... the keys sounded like a ghostly threat in the empty corridors. The air was as damp as a fog, and the stones were cold and slimy. After a moment the guard succeeded in unlocking the door and roughly pushed the Englishman forward. The door closed with a little puff, and Thorndyke felt about him for the guide; but he was alone. For a moment there was no sound. With the closing of the door it seemed to him that he was cut off from every living creature. In the awful silence he could hear his own heart beating ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... what sphere unknown Revolved in crimson space all incomplete, The great Creator, at a puff, spun off This tiny bit of ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... chatterers frequent their houses, and, with various pretended modes of adulation, applaud every word uttered by men of such high fortune; resembling the parasites in a comedy, for as they puff up bragging soldiers, attributing to them, as rivals of the heroes of old, sieges of cities, and battles, and the death of thousands of enemies, so these men admire the construction of the lofty pillars, and the walls inlaid with stones of carefully chosen ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... point the conference broke up in disorder, because Dick would not open his mouth till the Nilghai held his nose fast, and there was some trouble in forcing the nozzle of the bellows between his teeth; and even when it was there he weakly tried to puff against the force of the blast, and his cheeks blew up with a great explosion; and the enemy becoming helpless with laughter he so beat them over the head with a soft sofa cushion that that became unsewn and ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... pause. A puff of wind, the last vital rally of the expiring breeze, carried the Spindrift forward till the punt at her moorings lay almost under ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... extremely. He sipped his brandy and water and enjoyed a treacle-pudding which followed the pie. Then, when Joan was clearing up and Mrs. Tregenza had departed to prepare for her visit to Penzance, Uncle Thomas began to puff out his cheeks, and blow, and frown, and look uneasily to the right and left—actions invariably performed when he contemplated certain monetary achievements of which he was only too fond. The sight of Mary's eyes upon him had often killed such indiscretions in the bud, ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... defense when disturbed by an enemy. It is a very sociable little bug, and will gather in a crowd under big flat stones in damp places. If the stone is suddenly overturned, the bombardiers at once begin a cannonade like the explosion of a grain of gunpowder, and throw out a puff of whitish vapor resembling smoke. The bombardiers of South America, China, and other warm countries, are much larger than those found in England, and the fluid they eject, which causes the tiny explosion, is capable of making a black ...
— Harper's Young People, July 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... nothing could make her forget the factory. When she set forth in the morning on her father's arm, she always cast a glance in that direction. At that hour the works were just stirring, the chimney emitted its first puff of black smoke. Sidonie, as she passed, could hear the shouts of the workmen, the dull, heavy blows of the bars of the printing-press, the mighty, rhythmical hum of the machinery; and all those sounds of toil, blended in her memory with recollections of fetes and blue-lined carriages, ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... following. It was a cordial invitation for the Boche to come up and fight! Jeb did not see them again for several minutes, but he noticed that one of the kite balloons suddenly burst into a little puff of flame and disappeared. ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... the matter?" cried Dick. His voice quavered a little, but he tried to speak boldly. Pussy was displeased at the question. She hissed, put up her back, swelled her tail to a puff, and fled to a distant part of the roof, where, from some hidden ambush, Dick ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... connection with the party, and to prove that his interest in them could not be diminished by a brief and enforced absence, Mr. Bouncer paid them flying visits at every station, keeping his pipe alight by a puff into the carriage, accompanied with an expression of his full conviction that Miss Fanny Green had been smoking, in defiance of the company's by-laws. These rapid interviews were enlivened by Mr. Bouncer informing his friends that Huz and Buz (who were ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... at last, and in due time; and it all came from a very little matter—so slight a matter as a little puff of seaward air. A trivial accident, you will say; yes, one of those very trivial accidents that so often affect the destinies ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... chauffeur, a bank clerk, and, yes, even a chorus man. At every one of those things I gave the best I had in stock to get to the front. Did I get there? Not quite!" he throws away the cigarette he's hardly had a puff of. "Why?" he asks me. "Because in every trade or profession there's somebody with half the sand and ability, who don't know the job's requirements but knows the boss's son! I'm not a quitter or I wouldn't be here, but I'm sick and disgusted with ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... shrewdly sheltered himself behind him. What was the use of making himself conspicuous, when a man with such broad shoulders was willing to bear on them the burden of all the follies of a party? He allowed Pierre to reign, puff himself out with importance and speak with authority, content to restrain or urge him on, according to the necessities of the cause. Thus, the old oil-dealer soon became a personage of mark. In the evening, when they were alone, Felicite used to say to him: "Go on, don't be frightened. We're ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... of two particularly short legs, and a thin man in black, name, profession, and pursuit unknown, who always sits in the same position, always displays the same long, vacant face, and never opens his lips, surrounded as he is by most enthusiastic conversation, except to puff forth a volume of tobacco smoke, or give vent to a very snappy, loud, and shrill hem! The conversation sometimes turns upon literature, Mr. Bolton being a literary character, and always upon such news of the day as is exclusively possessed by that talented individual. I found ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... get in a shot at the enemy at the same time. Truly, Monsieur, it seemed to me that I stood that way, while my heart went pounding against my ribs, for a whole year! I was no longer cold: the blood was racing through my veins, and I was everywhere in a glow. Suddenly there came a puff of wind, and as the mist thinned for a moment I saw that the whole ravine was full of Russians. Their advance already was half-way up the bank nearest to our works. In less than ten minutes the whole of them would be dashing into our outlying redoubts. ...
— For The Honor Of France - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... is met, as all situations in war in which efficiency can only be attained at the expense of great personal danger are met, namely, by braving the danger. When the aviators have an attack in contemplation they fly low and snap their fingers at the puff balls of death as the shrapnel from their appearance when bursting may well be called. Naturally, efforts were made early in the war to lessen the danger by armouring the body of the machine sufficiently to protect the aviator and his engine—for if the aviator escaped a shot which found the ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... the river Exe winds its blue course amid wood, field, and castled hill, descended, losing sight of the last of the Torrs, glanced at Exeter and its Cathedral, arrived at the station, and there, while waiting hand in hand on the platform, gazing at the carriage, and starting at each puff, snort, cough, and shriek of the engines, Marian and Gerald did indeed feel themselves severed from the ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... shouted to Nickey at the peak. The constable was just reaching for our stern. A puff of wind caught us, and we shot away. It was great. If I'd had a black flag, I know I'd have run it up in triumph. The constable stood up in the skiff, and paled the glory of the day with the vividness of his language. Also, he wailed for a ...
— The Road • Jack London
... says the puff preliminary of The Coming (CHATTO AND WINDUS), "you and all your friends will be reading and discussing this most strange and prophetic novel." Perhaps. But what we shall be saying about it depends largely, I suppose, upon our definition of the term prophetic; also a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 14, 1917 • Various
... Down, down into the bowels of the earth he thrust his steam-driven harpoon, until he touched the living fountain of oil, which, gushing up, half drowned him. Now, all the region round about him swarms with industry. Thousands of men are hurrying to and fro; the puff of the engine is heard everywhere; tens of thousands of barrels of oil are rolled out and turned into the channels of commerce; eager-eyed speculators throng all the converging avenues of travel, and a waiting world of consumers take the oil as fast as it is produced. ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... advise you," said Lady Jane, in her very gravest tone, "not to puff up Caroline's imagination with a parcel of romantic notions.—I never yet knew any good done by it. Depend on it you will be disappointed, if you expect a genius to descend from the clouds express for your daughters. Let them do as other people do, and they may have a chance of ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... "Puff-ridden!" why to be sure they are. The nation is a miserable Sindbad, and its boasted press the loathsome, foul old man upon his back, and yet they will tell you, and proclaim to the four winds for ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... will this never come to an end!" the convoy officer, a tall, fat, red-faced man with high shoulders, who kept puffing the smoke, of his cigarette into his thick moustache, asked, as he drew in a long puff. "You are killing me. From where have you got them all? Are there ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... morning of the 16th of July, when all was still and quiet in camp, a puff of blue smoke from a hill about three miles off, followed by the roar of a cannon, the hissing noise of a shell overhead, its loud report, was the first intimation the troops had that the enemy had commenced the advance, it is ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... coachman, looking at the top of the page immediately. "His last Will and Testament. Hech, sirs! there's a sair confronting of Death in a Doecument like yon! A' flesh is grass," continued the coachman, exhaling an additional puff of whisky, and looking up devoutly at the ceiling. "Tak' those words in connection with that other Screepture: Many are ca'ad, but few are chosen. Tak' that again, in connection with Rev'lations, Chapter the First, verses One to Fefteen. Lay the whole to heart; and what's your ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... the back-bone, starting at the head and working gently down toward the tail. Great care must be taken, that the fish may keep its shape. Cover with the cream, and bake about ten minutes, just to brown it a little. Garnish with parsley or little puff-paste cakes; or, you can cover it with the whites of three eggs, beaten to a stiff froth, and then ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa
... important letters of Sterling, without which Thomas Carlyle could not write the Life. What scrap of hearsay about contents of Sterling's letters to me, or that I had letters, this paltry journalist swelled into this puff-ball, I know not. He once came to my house, and, since that time, may have known Margaret Fuller in New York; but probably never saw any letter of Sterling's or heard the contents of any. I have not read again ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... several; the black snake, which is the most deadly, next to the rattle-snake is sometimes called the puff-adder, as it inflates the skin of the head and neck when angry. The copper-bellied snake is also poisonous. There is a small snake of a deep grass-green colour sometimes seen in the fields and open copse-woods. I do not think it is dangerous; I never heard of ...
— In The Forest • Catharine Parr Traill
... fool, with ease, Merely his lady-love to please, Sun, moon, and stars in sport would puff away. (Exit.) ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... puff of the breeze was louder. It had a tone unlike the dreary and sullen one which has bemoaned itself, and afflicted all mankind with miserable sympathy, for five days past. The wind has veered about! It now comes boisterously from the northwest, and, taking ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Aurelle, "a great artist cannot paint with a powder-puff; you must be able to feel that the fellow with the ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... A stone pipe is then filled with tobacco, by an attendant specially appointed to that office, and affixed to the stem, which is presented to the principal chief. That individual, with a gravity and hauteur that is unsurpassed in the annals of pomposity, receives the pipe in both hands, blows a puff to the east (probably in consequence of its being the quarter whence the sun rises), and thereafter pays a similar mark of attention to the other three points. He then raises the pipe above his head, points and balances ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... Dimplesmithy. There were tall Gugollaph-trees all along the road, here and there, but Sara felt sure she would know the right one when she saw it. And sure enough, there it was, with the smithy in the shade of it, and the Koopf blowing up the fire in his forge with a pair of puff-ball bellows. She knew now why he had hurried home so fast: it was to put on his apron. It was of the finest mouse-hide, and he was plainly ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... tell you all about it yet, but I don't mind saying I've struck something remarkable this time." Wasting hours and energy all for nothing. And when he came back in the evening to his little house, he would fling down a little sack of samples on the floor, and puff and blow after his day's work, as if no man could have toiled harder for his daily bread. He grew a few potatoes on sour, peaty soil, and cut the tufts of grass that grew by themselves on the ground about the house—that was Brede's farming. He was never made ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... was relating a story of his early wanderings in Egypt, with a leisurely gusto, an effective minuteness of picturing, the result of frequent repetition. At the points of significance he would pause for a moment or two and puff life into his cigar. His anecdotes were seldom remarkable, but they derived interest from the enjoyment with which he told them; they impressed one with a sense of mental satisfaction, of physical robustness ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... alone. On seeing the disorder in the kitchen, she claps her hands together. Then she takes out a powder-puff and begins to ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... just wrong about my darling Cardinal. See what it is to be jealous! He gave me lovely soup, roast beef, hare and currant jelly, puff pastry like Papal pretensions—you had but to breathe on it and it was nowhere—raisins and almonds, and those lovely preserved cherries like kisses kept in amber. And told me delicious stories ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... length by the heat, G. W. reached the summit, only to sink down at once in the tangle of bushes and pant and puff. But after a while he revived; and then peering through the undergrowth he gazed down upon the plain below that ...
— A Little Dusky Hero • Harriet T. Comstock
... watch of death; Nature's worst vermin scare her godlike sons; Echoes, the very leavings of a voice, Grow babbling ghosts, and call us to our graves; Each mole-hill thought swells to a huge Olympus; While we fantastic dreamers heave and puff, And sweat with an imagination's weight; As if, like Atlas, with these mortal shoulders We could sustain the burden of the world. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... was indefatigable in endeavouring to torment him. One time he would sing the 'Caramgnole,' and a thousand other horrors, before us; again, knowing that my mother disliked the smoke of tobacco, he would puff it in her face, as well as in that of my father, as they happened to pass him. He took care always to be in bed before we went to supper, because he knew that we must pass through his room. My father suffered it all with gentleness, forgiving the man from the bottom ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... way to the door of the President's box, and taking a small Derringer pistol in one hand and a double-edged dagger in the other, he thrust his arm into the entrance, where the President, sitting in an arm-chair, presented to his view the back and side of his head. A flash, a sharp report, a puff of smoke, and the fatal bullet ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... room by the fire for them," and he motioned to them to sit down by his side. A pipe, composed of a long flat wooden stem studded with brass nails, with a bowl cut out of red pipe-stone, was now handed round, each taking a short puff. ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... conventional tailed outline, comets are supposed to have. Astronomers talked of its double tail, one preceding it and one trailing behind it, but these were foreshortened to nothing, so that it had rather the form of a bellying puff of luminous smoke with an intenser, brighter heart. It rose a hot yellow color, and only began to show its distinctive greenness when it was clear of the mists ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... before they knew what she was about, all the soldiers were set out, just like two armies, and Mrs. Graham called the gardener to lay a train of gunpowder, and called—mimicking Robert—"Present, Fire!" and set fire to it, and there was heard a tremendous "pop," followed by a "puff," and then; no! there wasn't a bit of one of all those soldiers and horses left large enough to make ...
— Sugar and Spice • James Johnson
... day by day as he went about inspecting Egypt, so that it might strike at him as he passed along. We may note in passing that the Banyoro in the Sudan employ serpents in killing buffaloes at the present day. They catch a puff-adder in a noose, and then nail it alive by the tip of its tail to the round in the middle of a buffalo track, so that when an animal passes the reptile may strike at it. Presently a buffalo comes along, does what it is expected to do, ...
— Legends Of The Gods - The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations • E. A. Wallis Budge
... pitiless, degenerate. Sometimes, I wonder why God lets him live. (Her voice drops to a whisper.) Sometimes, I almost pray to God to let him die. (FALLON who already has determined to kill MOHUN, receives this speech with indifference, and continues grimly to puff on his cigar.) He's killed my happiness, he's killing me. In keeping him alive, I've grown ill and old. I see the children growing away from me, I see Tom drawing away from me. And now, after all ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... so sure," said Raffles, blowing a meditative puff; "as a matter of fact, I was thinking less of myself than of that poor devil of a Jack Rutter. There's a fellow who does things by halves; he's only half gone to the bad; and look at the difference between him ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... freshly peeled bark, dried grasses, and decayed animal matter, that lingers about the rude dwellings of all savage races, could ever mistake it for anything else. A single faint whiff of this, borne to Donald, on a puff of the night wind, gave him the very knowledge he wanted, and he at once began to move with the same caution that he had observed on the previous evening while creeping up to the fire-lighted ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... Googe and a Champney. His ancestors counted themselves honored in making alliances with foreigners—immigrants to our all-welcoming shores; 'a rose', Mr. Wiggins, 'by any other name'; I need not quote." His chest swelled; he interrupted himself to puff vigorously at his cigar before continuing: "My son, sir, is on the spindle side of the house a Googe, and a Googe, sir, has the blood of the Champneys and the Lord knows of how many noble immigrants" (the last word was emphasized by a fleeting ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... tricks the queen and her brothers teach to the hero. Then she sends him with her brothers to meet her relatives. He goes ahead of his guides, encounters Kuwahailo, who sends against him two bolts of fire, Kukuena and Mahuia, and two thunder rocks, Ikuwa and Welehu, all of which he wards off like a puff of wind. Next they meet Makalii and his wife, ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... discharged, its bottom studded with ponds and mills, and its sharp sides flecked with the little white-painted homes of well-to-do operatives; to the right and left along the other branch and the course of the united streams, the rumble of water-wheels, the puff of laboring engines, and the groan of tortured machinery never ceased. Machine-shops and cotton-factories, bagging-mills and box-mills, and wrapping-mills, and print-mills, and fine-paper-mills, and even mills for the making of those ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... space. Obscure journalists of this stamp were only paid after the insertion of the items, and not unfrequently spent the night in the printing-office to make sure that their contributions were not omitted; sometimes putting in a long article, obtained heaven knows how, sometimes a few lines of a puff. ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... the act of loading a rifle went off accidentally. The soldier to whom it belonged was standing just behind me, and I ordered Captain Browne to examine and report. In doing so the rifle again went off; it saved the man from punishment, but it began the battle. There was a puff of white smoke, and an instant later a 5-inch shell burst over our heads. The men opened out into the corn and scrub, and I dismounted while the advance continued. Taking my servant's rifle, I led ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... underground, turning the wool and cotton into tiny garments. Maia liked the clothes, but hated the thought of the blind mole, only she did not know how to escape him. In the evenings, when the spiders were going to their homes for the night, she would walk with them to the door and wait till a puff of wind blew the corn ears apart, and she could see ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... animal is the signal for a run, so the two long-legged Dogs and the white broad-chested Dog dashed after the Coyote. But right across their path, by happy chance, there flashed a brown streak ridden by a snowy powder-puff, the visible but evanescent sign for Cottontail Rabbit. The Coyote was not in sight now. The Rabbit was, so the Greyhounds dashed after the Cottontail, who took advantage of a Prairie-dog's hole to seek safety in the bosom of Mother Earth, and the ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... the need for some sort of action, a second and stronger puff of wind sent whirling aloft a shower of ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... I'll learn to chaff barmaids in a bar; Scotches daily, gayly quaff, puff a fierce cigar. I will haunt the Tango teas, at the stage-door stand; Wait for Dolly ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... of light from a tray before him, threaded them on a glancing silken string, and hummed to himself the while. Kim was conscious that beyond the circle of light the room was full of things that smelt like all the temples of all the East. A whiff of musk, a puff of sandal-wood, and a breath of sickly jessamine-oil caught ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... that waved their arms wildly; the grunt and wheeze from the engine, as if from a giant in pain; the sharp jerk, and then the steady pull at the carriage in which I was sitting; the "pant, pant! puff, puff!" of the iron horse, as he buckled to his work with a will; and then, finally, the preliminary oscillation of the ponderous train, the trembling and rumbling of creaking wheels along the rails—as we glided and bumped, slowly but steadily, ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... tied and placed a close guard. All my questions were met with silence save by Madame Kanine who cried: 'Pity, pity for the children! They are innocent!' as she dropped on her knees and stretched out her hands in supplication to us. The short-haired girl laughed out of impudent eyes and blew a puff of smoke into my face. I was forced to threaten them ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... shot," cried O'Grady, as a puff of smoke and a flash was seen to proceed from the frigate's side, followed by a report, as the iron missile went leaping over the water, but falling short of the object at which it was aimed. For some half-hour or more the frigate did not throw another ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... the Brains of His Devotees" (1868), in which a circle of strange men, whose own heads are their pipe-bowls, smoke away their brains through long tubes that work well into the composition, while, in the foreground, one of the poor foolish wretches drops, just as a last little curling puff rises from his smoked-out skull. There were more of such compositions before 1880, at the time when Mr. du Maurier was still making full-page drawings in Punch. But, after all, it is not in Punch, but rather ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... Phillips cried, heatedly; but his wife merely shrugged her splendid shoulders and, opening her gold vanity case, gave her face a deft going over with a tiny powder puff. After a time the man continued: "I could understand your attitude if you—cared for me, but some years ago you took pains to undeceive me on ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... an awful lot to say for himself; about dicky-birds and puff- puffs, and dogs, and trouser-pockets and rot of that sort, and didn't seem to care much whether I listened or no. Then, just when I thought he had about run dry and was getting sleepy, ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... chicks. She picks those pretty purple blossoms that grow in hedgerows and are called Venus' looking-glasses. She picks the dark ears of the milkwort, and crane's-bill and lily of the valley, whose tiny white bells shed a delicious perfume at the least puff of wind. Catherine loves flowers because they are beautiful; and she loves them too because they make such pretty ornaments. She is very simply dressed, and her pretty hair is hid under a brown linen cap. She wears a ...
— Child Life In Town And Country - 1909 • Anatole France
... the fire died down and the woodpile grew small. Neither of us moved to replenish the stock, and the darkness consequently came up very close to our faces. A few feet beyond the circle of firelight it was inky black. Occasionally a stray puff of wind set the billows shivering about us, but apart from this not very welcome sound a deep and depressing silence reigned, broken only by the gurgling of the river and the humming in the ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... and a quarter—it was a march of fully twenty minutes—to the edge of the woodland, the proposed cover of the column. Ten minutes before this point was reached a tiny puff of smoke showed on the brow of the hostile ridge; then, at an interval of several seconds, followed the sound of a distant explosion; then, almost immediately, came the screech of a rifled shell. Every man who heard it swiftly asked ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... Belle all the more to prompt action. Seeing that all his explanations made things worse, Charlie abruptly left, mounted his broncho, and went "rockity rockity" as the pony's heels went "puff, puff" on the dusty trail around the hill ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Malone took a puff of his cigarette. "Maybe he just wants to be sure," he said. "Funny things are happening all over." The cigarette tasted terrible and he put it out in an ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... my idee, now, Master Tongs. A song is a main fine thing, now, to fill up the chinks. First a glass, then a puff or ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... the meat into small pieces. Mix with an equal quantity of finely chopped lean ham and a small lot of chopped shallot. Season with salt, pepper and pounded mace, moisten with a few tablespoonfuls of white stock. Butter a pie dish, line the edges with puff paste and put in the mixture, placing puff paste over the top. Trim it around the edges, moisten and press together, cut a small hole in the top, and bake in a moderate oven. When cooked, pour a small quantity of hot cream through the hole in the top of the pie, ...
— Good Things to Eat as Suggested by Rufus • Rufus Estes |
